ACA International Files Comments Supporting United Healthcare TCPA Petition

On March 10, 2014, ACA International filed comments to the Federal Communications Commission in support of United Healthcare Services Inc.’s (UHC) Petition for Expedited Declaratory Ruling.

In its petition, UHC seeks to clarify that callers are not liable under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the FCC’s rules when they make informational, nontelemarketing, autodialed or prerecorded calls to wireless numbers for which they have obtained prior express consent when those numbers have been reassigned without the caller’s knowledge.

ACA agrees with UHC’s assertion that there is no incentive to make informational, nontelemarketing calls other than to the person who provided consent to be called. The association also urged the FCC to adopt an extension of the existing TCPA safe harbor for wrong numbers to address such calls.

On Jan. 31, 2014, ACA filed its own petition to the FCC, seeking clarification and revisions to rules governing the TCPA.  The association is asking the commission to:

• Confirm that not all predictive dialers are categorically automatic telephone dialing systems.

• Confirm that “capacity” under the TCPA means present ability.

• Clarify that prior express consent attaches to the person incurring a debt, and not the specific phone number provided by the consumer at the time a debt was incurred.

• Establish a safe harbor for autodialed “wrong number” non-telemarketing calls to wireless numbers.

These efforts are part of ACA’s integrated three-pronged effort (legal/litigation, regulatory and legislative) to reform the TCPA.